see
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jh ... bmcd13.xml
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Elvis Costello
North, Deutsche Grammophon, £13.99
Twenty-four albums in 26 years and still no sign that
our Elvis is running out of puff. Taking off at a
sharp tangent from his rocking 2002 collection When I
Was Cruel, this year's model finds him behind a piano
singing the kind of ballads his mum and dad might have
smooched along to when they were stepping out.
Fifty-odd years later, their son has done everybody
proud. Writing and arranging all the songs himself and
even waving a baton in front of a 48-piece orchestra
on a few tracks, this is Costello at his most
impressive - for better or worse, according to taste.
North sustains a mood of languorous romantic reverie
quite brilliantly – so brilliantly in fact that the
songs tend to blur into one long sequence of
tastefully chosen jazz chords: only Someone Took the
Words Away and the closer I'm in the Mood Again leave
a strong melodic trace. A similar conundrum surrounds
his perfectly pitched vocal performance. Costello has
the moves down pat, but that nasal twang, which works
so well in front of a rock band, suffers a bit here
from over-exposure.
Robert Sandall